


Under Your Spell(ing)

by notthetoothfairy



Category: Glee
Genre: (or let's say mildly religious Blaine), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Christian Blaine, M/M, Mentions of Bullying (all canon!), Skank Kurt Hummel, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, some light mocking of religious views (Kurt’s canonical opinions not mine!)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5855779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthetoothfairy/pseuds/notthetoothfairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emotionally isolated skank!Kurt approaches Blaine at a church youth group meeting, and somehow ends up with more feelings than he can handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a-simple-rainbow prompted (and then beta’ed because she’s awesome and has super powers): "Skank!Kurt spots yummy goody-two-shoes Blaine on his way to church youth group (partially mandated by parents, partially because he grew up with church so it is smtg that's part of his life and he doesn't mind). So skank!Kurt decides to follow Blaine and crash the meeting, all the while spending the whole time eyefucking Blaine." She also requested “I walk in on you correcting people's misspelled bathroom graffiti” as a side prompt (and that took up, like, most of it, oops). As a surprise, I also added another prompt meme (to be found in chapter 3).
> 
> If you want the links to all the prompt posts, I'll post them on my Tumblr (notthetoothfairy)!
> 
> By the way, this is all finished already so I'm not going to take long to update, between 1 and 3 days max!

Kurt spots him on a Wednesday afternoon in January, and he can’t tear his eyes away.

It’s been an obnoxiously boring afternoon thus far, especially considering that Kurt used to have Glee club after school where he now only has a blank space in his calendar, and he’s on his way to the tiny tobacco store across the street from the Lima Bean.

He’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t rather have a coffee than a cigarette but something about pink-haired boys with piercings ordering a grande non-fat mocha in a cozy coffee shop just screams hipster.

And Kurt isn’t hipster. So he foregoes the coffee, begrudgingly and with a promise to make himself some coffee once he gets home, and lets his eyes wander from the coffee shop back to the street so he can cross it and-

Oh, _hello_.

His eyes never make it to the tobacco store. They stop at, and get absolutely lost in, a gorgeous boy around his age who’s sitting on the brick wall in front of the Lima Bean parking lot a few feet away from Kurt. The boy’s gaze is cast downward on the book he’s holding in his gloved hands, his cheeks slightly reddened by the harsh January air, and when he looks up once to check the street (he’s probably waiting for someone, Kurt realizes), Kurt makes out big shiny eyes, framed by impressively long eyelashes, and a lush mouth that drops open when he catches Kurt staring at him and is bitten back into a thin line when the boy’s eyes go back to the book quickly. His cheeks also flush a tiny bit more, and Kurt grins.

He can’t figure out if the boy is affronted or pleased that Kurt just checked him out so openly but either way, he just found a way to make his afternoon a bit more interesting.

Cigarettes completely forgotten, Kurt takes a step towards the guy but then halts in his movements when a car stops next to the guy, and two girls step out before the driver sets off again. Kurt doesn’t see much besides blonde hair and fancy clothes at first but then he hears one of the girls speak.

“Hi, Blaine!” Kurt recognizes Quinn Fabray’s voice immediately. “Ready for church group?”

Church group? Kurt’s eyes nearly bulge out of his face. Fuck, of course. He spares another glance at the book the boy – Blaine, apparently – was reading, and this time realizes that it’s not just any book.

It’s the bible.

And, really, it figures. After all, the boy looks like a picture perfect Sunday school boy, a true goody-two-shoes.

And yes, totally Kurt’s type, too… but he’ll just deny it if anyone ever asks.

Needless to say, Kurt flees the scene before anyone can catch him making disgusted faces at their little group meeting. He heads straight into the tobacco store and asks for two packs. The clerk raises an eyebrow – he must be new because Kurt has been here enough times to count as a regular – and tells him that he looks a bit young to be buying cigarettes. Kurt glares at him and shoves his fake ID in the clerk’s face with a scoff, dumping the money on the counter with his free hand. One mumbled apology later, Kurt buries his purchase in the pockets of his leather jacket and strolls back out the store, just in time to see Quinn, of course, is leading the group of people – now five, Kurt notices – to the Lima Bean.

He rolls his eyes. A church youth group meeting in a coffee shop. What’s next, they pull out guitars and start singing Christian hymns while the baristas sway in the background? Ugh.

He’s about to just turn on his heels and take a stroll through the neighborhood before going home when he notices that Blaine has yet to move from his spot on the wall. In fact, he only hops off it with what looks like a dejected sigh after he gives the bible in his hand a long, measuring look.

Interesting. Somebody doesn’t seem to be all that much into church group.

Kurt grins. Maybe he isn’t the only one having a slow day and in desperate need of someone to save them from boredom.

Besides, crashing a church group meeting probably counts as a rebellious enough excuse for a skank like Kurt to enter a coffee shop and get his sweet dose of caffeine, right?

He makes sure to take his time; he doesn’t want them to notice him before he’s even started his little mission. When he opens the door to the coffee shop, the sweet smell of sugary coffee hitting his nose in a very pleasant, oh-so-corrupting way, he’s pleased to see that a few customers have gotten in line behind the group. It gives him a minute to check out Blaine again.

Yes, he’s definitely worth crashing the meeting. He’s just as stunning from behind as he was in profile and what’s more, he keeps dodging the flirtatious glances of one of the other church girls, making Kurt smirk.

Once they’re seated in a corner table in the far back of the coffee shop, Kurt struts up to the counter and orders his drink quickly.

Drink in hand, he grabs a nearby chair and drags it all the way across the room to the back where the meeting is happening and lets it come to a halt right next to Quinn (and more importantly, right across from Blaine), the back of the chair facing the table so that he can straddle the chair languidly and place his arms on the backrest.

He sends a lopsided smirk Blaine’s way and grins around the rim of his coffee cup when Blaine’s eyes widen in recognition and looks around the table a little frantically.

He’s a bit too focused on those details to notice Quinn waving a hand in his face.

“Hello? Kurt?” By the time he finally turns to her, she sounds frustrated. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, is this a private meeting?” Kurt drawls. “I saw you go in and thought… hey… I haven’t talked to Quinn in a while.”

Quinn squints at him. “Yes, and that was deliberate, I thought.”

She isn’t wrong, of course. He’d quit Glee club when he became a skank and stopped talking to any of his former friends, except Finn. Brothers are, after all, somewhat unavoidable.

But he’s not here to go down memory lane.

“Whatever.” He waves her off. “Don’t let me bother you, I’m here to learn.”

“You want to join us?” Quinn asks incredulously.

“Precisely.” Kurt shoots her a smug grin. “And you wouldn’t expel someone who’d want to learn, right?”

Quinn’s mouth opens and then closes again when she obviously doesn’t come up with a good enough excuse as to why he shouldn’t join them. She turns to her left a little helplessly, and that’s when Kurt notices for the first time the table is not only full of people his age but that there’s also a guy, probably in his late twenties, who seems to be the supervisor of the group.

Oh. Kurt forgot that an adult was probably going to be around to chaperone the group. Great.

But to his surprise, the youth pastor just nods.

“Sure,” he says, “you’re welcome to come and learn… Kurt, was it?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says with a shrug. “Great, I’ll just sit back, listen… and enjoy.”

He says that last part with a side glance to Blaine, and since his presence seems to be approved by the group now, he wastes no time to look him up and down appreciatively. If his profile and backside were a sight for sore eyes, his front is most definitely a _feast_.

His eyes linger on the shirt that’s stretched tightly over Blaine’s chest before they flicker back up to his face and it doesn’t escape Kurt that Blaine gulps ever so slightly when their eyes meet. It makes Kurt even bolder than he’s already feeling, and he follows their staring contest up with a wink. Blaine ducks his head with a smile but as soon as he’s gotten himself under control, his eyes shoot back up, catching Kurt by surprise.

“Blaine?” one of the other girls asks.

“Uh… sorry, what?” Blaine asks, blinking quickly and turning to the girl. It’s the first time Kurt hears him speak, and even his voice is attractive, _damn_. “I, uh, spaced out a little.”

“It’s fine,” Quinn says gently. “We just said we should go around the table and tell each other about what’s going in our lives right now. Do you want to go first?”

Oh god, sharing feelings, _yawn_. But at least it looks like he’s going to find out a little more about Blaine.

“Okay.” Blaine nods. “Well, you already know that I moved here two weeks ago and… the move was a little stressful, you know, with the school transfer and everything.” He smiles at Quinn. “But I joined Glee club, so that’s probably going to be fun.”

Kurt’s eyes widen a fraction. Had this happened three months ago when he was still in Glee club, he’d probably have done everything in his power to get a duet with Blaine. But that’s not him anymore so Kurt shakes his head to himself quickly and focuses on the conversation.

“- and you’re very welcome to join our God Squad at McKinley, too,” Quinn is saying.

Blaine smiles again but it looks a bit strained. Oh, he so doesn’t want to be part of that God Squad. Kurt shoots him another grin. This time, however, Blaine doesn’t look at him.

Oh, well, he’ll just have to try harder. He doesn’t catch Blaine’s eye for the rest of the round, though, and Kurt’s starting to get super bored by the time they reach Quinn. She tells everyone about how she’s back on the cheerleading team and trying to get back her old life, yadda yadda yadda, and then all of a sudden, all eyes are on him.

“What, do I have something on my face?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s your turn,” Blaine tells him, and damn that bastard, he actually has the audacity to put on a teasing smirk.

“Oh, no,” Kurt says at once, “I’m not going to share, I said I just wanted to sit back and listen-”

“Kurt, youth group is about participation,” the pastor says. “If you don’t open up to us, we won’t be able to support you.”

Who does this guy think he is?

“I don’t need support,” Kurt grits out, annoyed. “Least of all from you.”

Quinn sighs. “Everyone, meet Kurt. He’s your average skank-”

“Quinn,” the pastor warns.

“That’s what they call _themselves_ ,” Quinn defends herself. “Anyway, there’s _nothing_ going on in his life right now and that’s why he’s here.”

It hurts a little, how close her words hit to home, but Kurt isn’t going to let that deter him from his original plan to make his afternoon a little more interesting.

“Exactly.” He turns to Quinn and the pastor and puts on a fake smile. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Thanks, Quinn, for not letting me introduce myself. Rude. But anyway, now I’ve been introduced. Can we move on?”

She scoffs at him but Kurt’s already turned his back to her and instead catches Blaine chuckle at his words. The pastor doesn’t seem to know what to do with someone as unwilling to cooperate as Kurt, so he just lets it slide and suggests they start praying together.

He begrudgingly takes the hands of Quinn and the girl next to him and closes his eyes just like everyone else as the pastor says, “Lord, thank you for bringing us all together in this wonderful group. We pray that-”

Blah blah blah.

Kurt opens his eyes. It’s actually less boring to listen when he starts watching Blaine’s face – his eyes are closed but Kurt can still tell when he goes from solemn and participant to somewhat annoyed. At first, Kurt thinks it’s because of him, like he somehow catches him staring even with his eyes closed, but then Blaine turns his head to the girl next to him, the one who tried to flirt with him earlier, opens his eyes briefly and rolls his eyes at their joined hands before looking back to the round, one corner of his mouth tugging up when he meets Kurt’s eyes, and closing his eyes again.

Eyebrows raising, Kurt looks down to their hands and sees that she is clutching his hand tightly, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, and biting her lip. Kurt almost bursts out laughing. She really has no clue, does she?

Once they’re done with praying and actually start to discuss bible passages, Kurt drowns out the conversation completely because he just doesn’t care at all (thankfully, nobody addresses him after their first attempt to make him talk) and instead resumes his game of catching Blaine’s eye across the table.

Kurt’s surprised that nobody seems to notice anything but, then again, most of them have their noses buried in their bibles.

He’s pleased to notice, however, that Blaine seems wonderfully distracted.

Whenever he smiles at the boy, he’ll return it, if a little hesitantly, and actually blush a little sometimes. Kurt decides that moving on to bedroom eyes should be the natural next step but it proves to be a little less successful, simply because every time he tries it, it only makes Blaine look away with a stubborn look on his face like he’s not going to give in. And when Kurt finally manages to hold their gaze for longer than just a fleeting second, he wastes no time trying to brush their ankles together under the table, simultaneously looking up at Blaine through his lashes, but Blaine is so startled that he pulls out his leg from under the table with a loud clunk, making everybody look at him.

“Sorry,” he chokes out, accompanied by a nervous laugh. “Clumsy.”

Kurt isn’t entirely sure if the rash movement was born out of surprise or a sign that Blaine doesn’t want any physical contact, so he doesn’t try it again. He’s not one to push, and if he’s not getting consent for playing footsie, then so be it.

The meeting is over fifteen minutes later, and Kurt almost sighs in relief. As much as he enjoyed the flirt, he’s never attended something as boring as bible study and he’s running out of ways to make Blaine flustered anyway.

Kurt isn’t quick enough to make Blaine stay behind but he notices with a grin that when he exits the coffee shop that everyone else is already piling into their parents’ cars – everyone except for Blaine, who has hopped back up onto the brick wall and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his winter jacket.

Kurt saunters over and stops right next to him, fishing out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket and leaning his back onto the wall. He tilts his head sideways to look at Blaine while he lights a cigarette.

“So…” he says, lingering on the word, partly because it’ll leave the ball in Blaine’s court and partly because he really doesn’t know how to flirt with people using actual words.

You don’t need anything other than looks when you want to flirt with strangers at Scandals.

“What do you want?” Blaine asks. It doesn’t sound unfriendly, just… confused.

“Oh, wasn’t I obvious enough?” Kurt asks, grinning.

“Sure, but…” Blaine squirms next to him. “I’m not… I don’t just hook up with people.”

Kurt knows his appearance and attitude come with a reputation, and that his approaches weren’t exactly subtle, but he still feels himself getting annoyed. Blaine doesn’t even _know_ him.

“Calm down, psycho,” he drawls. “I wasn’t trying to get in your pants.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow. Sadly, he doesn’t seem all that impressed by Kurt’s snarky attitude.

“But you were flirting with me,” he tries, and Kurt thinks he detects a hint of hope. Hah!

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kurt says, whistling for good measure. “All I did was try to get you out of that church group nonsense that you obviously didn’t want to go to.”

Well, that… _and_ the ulterior motive.

Blaine laughs.

“Good job,” he mocks him. “Instead of getting me out, we were both stuck there. Besides, what makes you think I didn’t want to go?”

Kurt scoffs. “Right. Besides the fake politeness at Quinn’s God Squad invitation, and the rolling your eyes at people, you mean?”

“Oh.” Blaine rolls his eyes again, driving the point home. “That.”

Kurt chuckles lowly. “So, let me guess… it’s mandatory.”

“Somewhat.”

It’s vague but Kurt takes it as his cue to keep asking. “Parents?”

Blaine nods. “My mom’s worried I’m not gonna make any friends, and my dad… well. He’s convinced Susan and I would make a great couple. He got us a gig at Kings Island’s _Christmas Spectacular_ and let’s just say that I’ll take it as a compliment to my acting that now they both are convinced something could happen between us.”

“Clingy McClueless?” Kurt asks, and grimaces when Blaine nods. “Your dad doesn’t know you’re gay, huh?”

Blaine blushes a little, probably because Kurt just assumed so, but then again, he didn’t shoot down Kurt’s advances on the grounds of not being into guys _at all_ so there’s little room for interpretation anyway.

“He knows,” Blaine says with a sigh. “Susan knows, too. I’m out and proud, and all that. They just have… hopes.”

Kurt winces in sympathy.

“So your parents are forcing you to go to church group,” Kurt sums up. “Typical.”

But Blaine shakes his head adamantly. “No, it’s… I mean, they want me to go, yeah, but… it’s not like they’re making me go against my will.” He shrugs. “I grew up with church, it’s part of my life. And this one supports LGBTQ members, too, so I like it well enough. That’s why I don’t want to join the God Squad, though. I’ve heard they’re not as open-minded and I really don’t want to have to defend myself for something I think is just a normal part of me, you know…?”

Kurt takes a few seconds to process the information and just smokes his cigarette in silence for a bit.

Blaine sucks in a breath and starts babbling on the exhale, “Wow, sorry, I’m unloading unnecessary information on you, I don’t… I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. Just… ignore me.”

Kurt refrains from pointing out that he deliberately asked for the information Blaine provided.

“So… you’re actually religious?” he asks instead.

“Kind of, yeah.” Blaine laughs. “You’re not, I’m guessing?”

“No, I’m not.” Kurt shudders at the thought, and takes a drag of his cigarette. “Churches aren’t for me. I prefer sleeping in on Sundays and planning my afterlife in hell.”

Blaine grins. “You think you’re so bad, don’t you?”

It’s teasing and it sounds almost flirtatious, but also genuinely curious, and Kurt’s momentarily taken aback by the words because people don’t just question his attitude like that.

“I-” He doesn’t know how to continue. “I don’t-”

A car stops next to them and Blaine gets off the wall immediately.

“My dad’s picking me up,” he explains and gives Kurt a quick wave before he opens the door. “Bye, Kurt.”

Kurt merely blinks, and he almost misses Blaine’s annoyed, “No, dad, I’m not doing any drugs, he’s in my youth group, relax,” right before the car drives off.

-

He tells himself it was just a missed opportunity, nothing to obsess over. In fact, he _shouldn’t_ obsess over it.

After all, the skanks don’t care about anyone and thus nobody cares about them.

So, Kurt doesn’t care for Blaine.

Why would he? They flirted, they talked… and that’s it. Nothing unusual.

And he isn’t upset at all that their conversation – god, he was actually having a normal conversation with someone – was cut short.

The attraction was purely physical.

Yet, he finds himself keeping an eye out for Blaine when he is purposefully _not_ skipping a single class over the course of the next week. When people, especially the other skanks, give him weird looks for being at school all day and not hanging out under the bleachers, he shrugs nonchalantly and says he needs to show up every now and then to maintain a passing grade. In fact, it’s actually a good idea… at least that’s what he tells himself.

It turns out that Blaine shares two of his classes, biology and gym class. Their bio teacher is a monster and makes Kurt sit in the front row for cutting class so often, so he doesn’t get a chance to ogle Blaine during the whole torturous lesson on sex ed. It’s a shame, really, because about a million innuendos pop into Kurt’s mind, but he’s wasting his breath.

Gym class, however, turns out to be a little bit more exciting. McKinley’s very short gym shorts actually look even shorter and yummier on Blaine. He likes to think that nobody can blame if he looks over more than once.

When Blaine notices him looking the first time, he just snorts.

When it happens the fifth time, he actually clears his throat and gives Kurt a pointed look that says, _My eyes are up here_. It’s by that point at the latest that Kurt knows Blaine won’t buy any excuses à la _I just wanted to get you out of boring gym class_.

Of course, Kurt’s former self would have been embarrassed for days to be caught staring but he isn’t that person anymore. Embarrassment is a thing of the past.

Or so he thinks.

Because when Blaine catches him staring for the twelfth time, he jogs over to him, leans close and mumbles, “The red shirt clashes with your hair.” He grins. “It’s cute.”

It catches Kurt off guard, and he has to fight down a blush. He can’t just blush in front of people, for god’s sake.

“It’s _cute_ that you thought that would be a good pick-up line,” he manages to shoot back, and Blaine throws another grin over his shoulder as he goes back to his exercise.

“It’s cute that you thought that _was_ a pick-up line.”

Kurt stares after him, lost for words. Is Blaine trying to get back at him for denying he was flirting last week?

Ugh, he so is.

Apparently, embarrassment is very much a thing of the present.

Kurt doesn’t go back to gym class for the rest of the week.

-

If his teachers were already fed up with him for skipping their classes in the first place, they sure are even more upset that he shows up again without having done any work in the meantime. By Tuesday morning, Kurt has already gotten detention from nine different teachers, so Figgins gives him four whole weeks in total and sends him to his first session on Wednesday after school.

One week ago, he was complaining about his boring-as-hell afternoons, and now he somehow managed to make them even more torturous. Hooray.

The clock is ticking way too slowly – it can’t still be half past three, can it? – and Kurt decides to use up one of his two bathroom breaks that the supervising teacher allows him. Azimio has already gone twice so there’s no chance he can follow him and beat him up, even though Kurt’s pretty sure becoming a skank has already gotten him off the footballers’ radar more or less. At least all of them except Karofsky but he’s too much of a coward to go after Kurt on his own, especially not now that Kurt just needs to blow smoke in his face and coolly ask him if he wants his secret to be broadcast for everyone to hear at the next pep rally.

Kurt would never do it, of course. He doesn’t believe in outing others, not even when the person is question is a bullying Neanderthal. Not even when it’s a bullying Neanderthal in the closet who thinks it would be fun to kiss Kurt, unsolicited and forced, and following it up by death threats so Kurt wouldn’t tell anyone.

So yeah, Karofsky turned Kurt’s junior year of high school into absolute hell, but what he doesn’t know is that Kurt wasn’t serious when he suddenly started threatening him back. And somehow his new appearance seems to make more of a reckless and unpredictable impression, because Karofsky hasn’t cornered him again.

Kurt hesitates for a moment when he leaves the classroom, shooting a wistful look down the hallway towards the exit, but decides against escaping. He doesn’t want to risk getting even more detention. Besides, he does need to pee.

However, urinating is the last thing on his mind once he opens the door to the bathroom.

“What on earth are you _doing_?” Kurt asks.

Blaine is standing in front of one of the open stall doors, scrambling to hide the pen he’s clutching in his hand by throwing his arm behind his back and putting on a wide smile that immediately morphs into a relieved sigh when he sees Kurt.

“Good, it’s you,” he breathes out. “For a scary second, I thought it was a teacher or someone else who’d rat me out.”

“Rat you out for…?” Kurt trails off, focusing on the stall door behind Blaine for a second. It’s filled with pornographic drawings and random phrases, and while that in itself obviously isn’t news to Kurt, combined with the pen Blaine’s holding, it becomes almost scandalous. “Blaine, are you- oh my god, are you defacing school property?!” He gives Blaine an amused look. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d have it in you…”

“Uh, well…” Blaine bites his lip, his eyes flitting to the pen in his hand. “I actually wasn’t-”

“Yeah, right.” Kurt smirks. So long, goody-two-shoes and innocent school boy images; hello, adorably rebellious, vandalizing Blaine. “Let me see…”

He pushes past Blaine, curious to see if it’s a dedication to someone, or a mean comment, or maybe some ridiculous God-related proverb, or…

Kurt squints at the door. “Wait, which one did you write? Oh…” He’s suddenly laughing so hard he has to clutch his belly with one hand and grab Blaine’s shoulder with the other to hold himself up. “What the fuck, are you for _real_? You’re _correcting_ spelling mistakes on people’s bathroom graffiti…?”

Blaine doesn’t answer right away but there’s no doubt that where it said, _I could care less about you’re boring lifes_ , it now reads, _I couldn’t care less about your boring lives_ , corrections unmistakably the same color as the red pen Blaine used.

Blaine starts to say something but Kurt misses it because he’s overcome with another wave of laughter. God, he can’t remember the last time he laughed this hard.

“Sorry, what?” he asks once he’s done, wiping away a stray tear on his cheek.

Blaine’s face is beet-red and it’s so wickedly cute that Kurt has the sudden urge to kiss him. A romantic kiss, not one of the hurried I-want-to-get-in-your-pants variety, and Kurt swallows the realization down like cough syrup. Not good.

“I just…,” Blaine starts again. “I hate it when people make spelling mistakes.”

“It repulses me, too, but… come on.” Kurt points at the stall door. “Everyone knows bathroom graffiti isn’t exactly meant to be poetry.”

“Sometimes it is,” Blaine protests.

“You say that like you’ve composed one yourself,” Kurt says with a smirk. “Anything rebellious you’ve written on those walls that you want to share with the class?”

“Maybe I have.” Blaine sticks up his nose in the air. “But I’d never tell you.”

It’s mostly teasing, though Kurt sees a tiny hint of embarrassment.

“Aw, you haven’t,” he says. “And to think I was almost led to believe you weren’t _that_ innocent after all…”

“Hey.” Blaine sniffs. “I’ll have you know that I actually sometimes add sarcastic commentary instead of proofreading.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow and doesn’t waver until Blaine reluctantly pulls open the bathroom stall door next to the one he was redecorating before, and Kurt snorts indignantly when he sees it.

_Satin rulez! – I agree! It sure is a nice fabric!_

Grinning, he turns to Blaine.

“Are you sure you left it like that to be sassy or were you just afraid to spell out You-Know-Who’s name?” he teases.

Blaine rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “I’m okay with spelling Satan. There,” he grins triumphantly, “I even said it.”

“You think you’re so bad, don’t you?” Kurt echoes Blaine’s words from last week, and maybe it’s proof that Blaine thought about it a lot, too, because his eyes widen in recognition of the phrasing and he ducks his head a little bashfully.

Kurt’s ears are ringing with a mantra of, _Not good, not good, not good_.

But apparently, his filter just isn’t on today and he can’t be stopped.

Which is why he suddenly blurts, “Do you want to continue this over coffee?”

Oh dear, did he just…? No, he didn’t. He meant as friends. Clearly.

No. Fuck. He didn’t mean that, either.

Is there any setting in which two people grabbing coffee isn’t a date or friends hanging out?

“Uh…” Blaine blinks. “I have Glee club, actually…”

“Oh…” Kurt trails off, scratching his neck. He feels rejected, yet relieved, which, frankly, is a weird combination of feelings. And who gave his body permission to _feel_ , anyway? “Well, I have detention, come to think of it.”

Blaine raises his eyebrows, which makes them look ridiculously triangular. Kurt focuses on that. He can deal with ridiculous.

“Detention? What for?”

Kurt shrugs. “Cutting class.”

“Makes sense.” Blaine bites his lip. “Well, we should probably go back…”

Kurt nods and turns to the door before he remembers he actually needed to pee. Awkward.

He spins away from the door.

“I was actually gonna…” he says, gesturing to the stalls.

“Oh, right!” Blaine makes a face. “Sorry I kept you.”

“What were you even doing here in the first place?” Kurt asks curiously, and wow, it’s like he subconsciously doesn’t _want_ Blaine to go. “Do you take regular breaks from Glee club to correct people’s spelling mistakes in the fine institution that is McKinley’s Bathroom Poets Society?”

“Believe it or not, I have a properly functioning bladder, so I primarily came here with the same reason you did.” Blaine scrunches up his nose when he adds, “Unless you’re here to get out of detention.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Kurt smirks. “But it is nice to escape the two-hour madness for a few minutes, even if I now have to search the stalls with a magnifying glass to find some spelling errors to make fun of like I usually do.”

“Funny,” Blaine comments wryly. “Well, uh… see you around.”

“See ya.” He pulls the stall door until it’s closed behind him and listens for the sound of the bathroom door closing as well before he lets out a sigh. “What is _wrong_ with me?”

He mulls the question over while he pees and he still isn’t done thinking about it when he gets back to detention, his teacher giving him a stern look for taking so long, which Kurt responds to with a glare. There are a million reasons for why people could take a long time in the bathroom, so who is she to judge?

With his mind occupied, the time actually goes by faster, and Kurt’s almost surprised when they’re being dismissed all of a sudden.

It doesn’t compare to the surprise that’s waiting in front of the classroom, though.

“Hey,” Blaine says, holding the strap of his bag in both hands as if he needs something to grab on to. “So, according to Puck, Glee club ends at the same time as detention…”

Kurt looks at him confusedly. “And you thought you’d check if he was right…? Puck’s always right about detention, you know, he spends more time in that room than anyone else.”

Blaine smiles feebly. “No, I thought I’d see if you were serious about that coffee.”

Oh.

Kurt can’t help it when he blushes this time, and he looks down to his feet to hide it, tracing an invisible pattern on the floor with one of his boots.

“Yeah, sure,” he says slowly, trying the words out on his tongue, and when he finds it’s not that hard to sound somewhat amicable, he adds, “I thought you didn’t want to.”

“I never said that,” Blaine replies, his smile widening a fraction. “I said I had Glee club.”

“Okay, well… do you want to go now?”

Blaine nods, and finally lets go of the strap, visibly relaxing.

“Cool,” Kurt says, shrugging on his leather jacket.

It’s an attempt to act casual but he doesn’t feel casual at all, and, damn, he thought he’d have this seduction thing down to perfection by now.

Not that he has a lot of experience to build on, almost all of his experiments at Scandals sort of petered out when he realized that he didn’t want to do anything but dance with the people he approached. He’d made out with people a few times, grinded with a few and even went home with someone once, though he never went back to Scandals afterwards.

Still, it helped make him better at flirting and acting like he was calm and collected and _not_ a blushing mess. He has successfully improved his attitude, making people believe that he’s a skank, in the full scope of the word’s meaning, seductive and ruthless, but apparently, all that it takes to tear that wall down is a cute boy tentatively reaching out to him.

That, or Blaine must be some kind of wizard.

-

They stay at the Lima Bean for two hours, getting a total of six cups of coffee, and talking almost non-stop. Most of it is mutual teasing, but they also talk about Blaine’s life a lot.

He learns that Blaine has an older brother that has starred in a commercial that Kurt knows (but other than that, Blaine seems to be a bit touchy when it comes to this topic), he transferred to McKinley from Dalton Academy, which means Kurt would have competed against him at Sectionals if he hadn’t quit Glee club (he leaves out that part when he responds, though), he wants to move to New York after high school because he loves musical theatre and wants to become a performer (Kurt feels a little pang in his chest when he realizes how compatible they would have been if he hadn’t, well, changed so much), and he’s a bit of a nerd when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi, which means that the one he gets along most with in Glee club is, naturally, Sam (Kurt wonders if Blaine has a crush on him, too, because contrary to Kurt and Sam, it sounds like those two would actually share the same interests, and he’s almost a little bothered by the thought even though he’s perfectly aware that Sam is straight).

When Blaine starts asking questions about Kurt’s life, Kurt changes the topic, and Blaine seemingly knows better than to poke around for answers.

At one point, Blaine mentions church, and Kurt looks up quickly.

“Wait, don’t you have your youth group at this time…?”

Blaine shrugs. “I told Quinn in Glee club that I wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“See, I knew you weren’t that serious about it,” Kurt teases him. He looks around the coffee shop to scan the other tables. “You probably just went for the coffee. But they’re not meeting here today…?”

“No, they’re not,” Blaine confirms. “We meet in different places all the time. Today would have been team-building exercises at Susan’s house, though, and… well, you know, I’m not _that_ keen on participating in that, and now I have an actual excuse…”

Kurt sobers up at once. “Does she really bother you that much?”

With the way he’s behaving today, he’s probably just seconds away from offering to assassinate her for Blaine, but thankfully, Blaine shakes his head quickly.

“No, it’s fine.” Blaine smiles. “I just meant that I’d rather get coffee with you than untie human knots – or whatever they’re doing as an exercise – with her.” He plays with his coffee cup absent-mindedly. “I do prefer the company of people I actually _want_ to flirt with.”

They both chuckle awkwardly when the words are out.

“Um…” Blaine lets go of his coffee cup and lets his hands come to a halt on the table instead. “Sorry, that was too forward.”

Kurt gives him a doubtful look.

“I followed you inside this building last week and pretended to be interested in _church_ of all things to chat you up- or well, eye you up, I guess – and you think _you’re_ being forward?”

Blaine smiles but it looks a little off this time.

“We still want different things, don’t we?” he asks, very obviously pretending to be casual.

Kurt resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“If that’s your way of asking me if I’m looking for a boyfriend,” he says, and he hates himself while he says it, but this is what he’s chosen, he’s not just going to change his mind at the first chance of having someone around who could make him feel good for more than just a few hours, “I’m not.”

Blaine nods, hands back on the coffee cup. “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Right, well… I’m still not looking for a hook-up, so...”

Kurt almost wishes he hadn’t gone out of his way to talk to Blaine last week. What a stupid mistake.

“Is it a religious thing?” Kurt asks, aware of how judgmental he sounds but not finding it in himself to stop. “The no-sex-before-marriage kind of deal?”

“No.” Blaine looks him right in the eye and it’s clear he’s not taking offense but also not happy about the question either. “It’s a no-sex-until-I’m-absolutely-sure-I-want-it thing.”

Kurt nods, heart racing, but doesn’t reply. They’re both silent for a while.

He suddenly feels desperate for a cigarette.

“I’m going out for a-” he starts, but Blaine catches him by the wrist before he can leave.

“Kurt, wait.” He looks up with hopeful eyes. “I need to go in five minutes, anyway. My parents are expecting me for dinner.”

“Okay,” Kurt mutters sitting back down. “Can we talk about something else, though?”

“How…” Blaine places his phone on the table. “How about you give me your number?”

Kurt stares at Blaine. “You’re hard to read right now,” Kurt tells him, half-teasing, half-serious. “You did hear me when I said I wasn’t looking for anything serious, right…?”

Blaine rolls his eyes. “I have tons of numbers of friends that I’m not dating.”

“Floozy,” Kurt jokes, mostly to hide the fact that even the word _friend_ is a bit much for him, but he takes the phone and punches in his number, anyway. “There you go. I guess I’ll just be a booty call away, then…”

“If I recall correctly, you were the one with the booty fetish the other day,” Blaine deadpans, and Kurt almost bangs his head against the table.

He’s openly trying to upset Blaine by being crass, and even that isn’t working. He definitely picked the wrong goody-two-shoes to seduce. Blaine doesn’t even _falter_.

“Booty fetish just sounds wrong,” Kurt says, grimacing. “What are you, five?”

“Five?” Blaine chokes out, acting concerned. “I sincerely hope you didn’t talk about your booty fetish with the other kids in primary school, Kurt. Those poor, innocent souls.”

Kurt has to stifle his laughter. “Stop saying booty fetish!”

“Stop being weird about your booty fetish!”

A throat clears behind Blaine, and Kurt looks up to see a blonde woman looking at them with both eyebrows raised. Kurt just looks back at her defiantly, half expecting her to tell them that she’s the manager of the Lima Bean and they’re being thrown out for scaring other customers away.

But when Blaine turns around, he squeaks, “Mom! Uh… hi. Have you been waiting long?”

“Long enough for my ears to bleed,” she says with a grin, and _ah_ , Kurt can see where Blaine gets the sass from. “I texted you that I was in the parking lot five minutes ago but you didn’t reply.”

Just a minute ago, Blaine said he had about five more minutes. Did he make his mom wait on purpose so that he could exchange numbers with Kurt…?

“Sorry, I must have missed it.” Lie, blatant lie! Kurt is about to kick Blaine’s shin under the table (he might be unsociable and catty but even he knows it’s wrong to lie to one’s mother) when Blaine turns back to Kurt and winks at him. “I was just saying goodbye, anyway.”

“Clearly.” Blaine’s mom extends her hand to Kurt. “Hi, I’m Pam. You must be Kurt.”

Kurt’s eyebrows shoot up all the way to his hairline as he shakes her hand. Blaine’s mom knows who he is _and_ his name? It’s been a _week_ since they’ve met; how…?

Blaine gets up from the table abruptly.

“Okay, I’m gonna go,” he says, apparently deciding that any interaction between his mom and Kurt should be cut short. “I’ll see you around?”

“I guess,” Kurt replies with a shrug, not wanting to look too enthusiastic in front of Blaine’s mom. He doesn’t really need her to think they’re boyfriends, especially not when she already knows about him _and_ heard them talk about… ugh, the booty fetish.

“Do you need a ride home, Kurt?” Pam asks, and she’s really just like Blaine, completely ignoring his attempt to appear inapproachable.

“No, thanks,” he says. “I’ll have a smoke and walk home, it’s not far.”

“Alright.” She waves. “Have a nice evening, Kurt, and remember, smoking is bad for your health.”

“Mom,” Blaine groans. “Can we just go?”

As they leave, Blaine throws Kurt a quick, apologetic glance over his shoulder, but Kurt just raises his coffee cup in a silent goodbye and watches them leave with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

-

Kurt feels his phone buzz with a message in his pocket but he doesn’t take it out while he’s eating dinner with his family, even though he’s almost entirely sure it’s Blaine and itches to read it. But Kurt knows his dad would not be pleased if he didn’t at least finish his meal, and Kurt really doesn’t want to upset him any more than he already has.

He was doing so well last year, connecting with his dad more than ever, and sharing more and more of himself with him, but when the bullying got worse after Burt’s heart attack, Kurt just couldn’t bring himself to tell him out of fear it would upset and make him ill again.

So Kurt dealt with the problem on his own. Karofsky continued to harass him and, at first, Kurt didn’t know what to do about it – until he observed how two of the skanks cut the line in lunch, throwing dirty looks at Azimio and Karofsky when they complained. Unlike the multiple times Kurt had talked back to them, that time, they didn’t even crack their knuckles or try to look intimidating. They just sulked.

The skanks held some kind of power, and Kurt wanted it. The realization came right on time, with Burt and Carole leaving for their honeymoon the very next day, leaving Kurt enough time to make a few changes going unnoticed by the parental units.

So he did – and if there was anything Kurt could always count on, it was his knack and passion for makeovers.

By the time Burt and Carole came back from their honeymoon, Kurt had pink streaks in his hair, an eyebrow piercing and two earrings, leather clothing, had acquired a fake ID and successfully convinced the bullies, including Karofsky, that it was better not to fuck with him.

It meant being a little ruthless with mostly empty threats, but at least Kurt found out that you could blackmail just about anyone if you just dug up enough dirt.

He knew he had not only become a skank but also a disappointment for his dad. He’d been yelled at, interrogated, sent to his room and grounded, but there wasn’t anything Burt could have said to convince Kurt to get rid of his piercings, the earring, the hair, or the leather.

But he feels Burt’s approval with every step he makes, so he waits until after dinner to excuse himself, and it’s a sign for how resigned his dad has become that he doesn’t even try to convince Kurt to stay downstairs with them to watch a movie.

As soon as Kurt’s in his room, he opens up the unread message.

_Unknown number: Just fyi, my mom knows about you because my dad wouldn’t stop ranting about how I apparently hang out with punks now, so I told them you were in my church group, so… yeah. Just clearing that up._

He saves the number, briefly noting that he doesn’t even know Blaine’s last name, and types out a reply.

_Kurt: Sure, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night._

The response comes almost instantly.

_Blaine: Kurt!!! I’m serious. I’m not in the business of telling my parents about boys I might or might not be flirting with. Though my mom obviously isn’t letting it go now._

Kurt wants to snort at the “might or might not be” part but he mostly just feels the urge to hide his face in his pillow and scream.

Fingers hovering over his phone tentatively, he takes his time to choose his next words.

_Kurt: About the flirting…_

_Blaine: Yes?_

_Kurt: How’s that going to work now?_

_Blaine: I… I don’t know? I honestly just want to talk to you. You’re cool._

Kurt scoffs at the message.

_Kurt: Excuse you, I am not cool._

_Blaine: lol that is not offensive at all, what is wrong with you? But, okay, nice then._

_Kurt: You’re making it worse._

_Blaine: Weird…?_

Kurt grins and punches away on his keyboard quickly.

_Kurt: Slightly better. Though I’m still going to point out that you’re the weird one. You carry a pen with you to correct people’s spelling in the bathroom stalls, Blaine._

_Blaine: I can’t be the only one who’s bothered by that. Spelling is important!_

_Kurt: It’s not_ that _important. You still know what they we’re going to say!_

_Blaine: … okay, my left eye is actually twitching. You did that on purpose._

_Kurt: Your easy to crack._

_Blaine: Please stop!!!!!!!!!!_

_Kurt: Oaky._

_Kurt: Haha that one was actually a typo! Not that I care but… you can tell your eye to stop twitching now. And I reiterate: Weirdo. Spelling isn’t everything._

_Blaine: If only it was that easy. I can’t unsee it, Kurt. And I’m going to prove you wrong. I’ll find a horrible spelling mistake on a bathroom stall somewhere and take a picture of it to show you how wrong you are._

While Kurt types out his answer, he catches a look of himself in the mirror across the room and actually drops his phone when he realizes he’s smiling from ear to ear.

Oh, this is so not good.

But he feels light and _good_ for a change, and it’s so addicting.

He sighs, picking his phone back up.

He’s just going to send Blaine one more text, and then he’s going to put his phone away.

He texts Blaine all night.


	2. Chapter 2

They don’t go back to the Lima Bean for a while but Blaine still sometimes waits for Kurt after detention and keeps him company under the bleachers while Kurt smokes, even though it’s still freezing cold out.

And then, by the third week of detention, sometimes turns into every day, even when Blaine just stops by to say hello quickly and then dashes off to church group, a movie marathon with Sam, or a shopping trip with Tina. Blaine invites him every single time but Kurt always declines. He doesn’t mingle.

Kurt finds himself both looking forward to the day his four weeks of detention are finally over and dreading it because he isn’t sure if this thing he has going on with Blaine is a temporary deal only. He smokes almost an entire pack of cigarettes that first day, staying in his spot under the bleachers for the entirety of the afternoon, and almost decides it’s too pathetic to just wait for Blaine to join him, but he’s glad he couldn’t make himself go when Blaine shows up exactly five minutes after Glee club practice ends, cheeks flushed because he apparently ran all the way to the bleachers.

So the location changes, the procedure doesn’t. They continue to hang out, and somehow, they fall into a pretty compatible routine, alternating between getting coffee and just staying under the bleachers depending on what works easier with Blaine’s schedule.

Kurt doesn’t talk much, mostly he just listens to Blaine and makes sarcastic comments, but he’s gotten so used to being alone that even that feels like heavy socializing.

He refuses to sit with Blaine during lunch, though, because Blaine sits with the Glee club, and Kurt won’t go there, not even for Blaine’s sake. He knows Blaine wants to know why he quit Glee club and why he changes the topic every time it comes up, but he proves to be more stubborn than Blaine, relentlessly dismissing Blaine’s questions.

Glee club still comes up frequently, Blaine telling him about their current assignments and the latest gossip, and it’s enough to make Kurt want to put his fingers in his ears because there’s just no denying that he _misses_ it, hanging out in the choir room and goofing off, singing duets and group numbers, preparing for Regionals with them…

But it’s part of the reason he had to become a skank, and he can’t go back there, so he just humors Blaine, nodding along and asking questions, but never admitting that he wants to rejoin them. When it gets too much, he usually deflects by flirting with Blaine to make him flustered.

He does it even though there’s an unspoken agreement between them that it’s best to keep their friendship strictly platonic. But it still happens every now and then, and Kurt can’t feel too bad about breaking the rule because Blaine isn’t any better. Kurt has become an expert at flirting with the eyes with his field trips to Scandals and even with that experience in mind, Blaine will sometimes give him a look that is more intense than anything he’s ever witnessed before.

Kurt tries to ignore every single one of them, and yet he sometimes responds with a wink.

But they don’t talk about it at all, and Kurt is glad they don’t because he doesn’t want to have to put a label to what they’re doing. The explanation actually works well in his favor when the other skanks ask him about Blaine.

“It’s nothing,” he says on an exhale of smoke, and they give him an approving nod.

It’s weird because when he started out, he thought he’d have to explain himself to everyone else and now he’s actually answering to the skanks. But then again, there aren’t many people left who care enough to ask.

The skanks certainly don’t – not really, anyway. Kurt isn’t even sure if any of them would call each other friends. They just hang out under the bleachers and smoke together.

When Kurt hesitantly joined them for the first time, pink hair and piercings already in place, they had looked him up and down before shrugging and letting him sit with them. When he asked what they did all day, one girl had grinned and asked him, “Are you asking us how to be one of us?” She had chuckled darkly as she continued without waiting for an answer, “That’s easy, newbie. Just be destructive as fuck and corrupt the souls of the innocent, and the rest will sort itself out.”

Kurt knew she was probably being sarcastic, because it sounded more like he was joining a wannabe vampire club, yet he took her answer to heart, quickly finding that destruction was surprisingly easy for him. Quitting Glee club, detaching from his friends… it was almost pathetic how quickly he could let it all go and how easily everyone forgot about him.

Finn and Mercedes were a bit more adamant but, in the end, even Mercedes had admitted defeat and Finn only stuck with him because they were brothers.

Mr. Shue had tried to talk to him about it at one point, but obviously he didn’t count. Teachers made it their jobs to understand their students, and besides, Mr. Shue had even failed Kurt on that duty, always trying to pair Kurt with the boys and not letting him sing with the girls.

Kurt had taken the destruction even further, to a physical level, when he’d started smoking. His father went ballistic the first time he smelled smoke on Kurt’s clothes, but since he didn’t know about Kurt’s fake ID, he couldn’t put a stop to it. And Kurt liked how smoking made him look – collected, confident, and most important of all, _untouchable_.

Blaine didn’t get that memo, obviously, but, hey, Kurt’s not complaining, because he still needs to get to the soul-corrupting part, right?

Not that he’s actually even close to corrupting Blaine. He doesn’t seem to care much that Kurt is who he is, and now that they have cleared up that their mutual attraction doesn’t mean much in terms of what they want out of a potential partner, any kind of sexual corruption is probably out of the question.

Maybe he can at least convince Blaine to take a drag of his cigarette one day.

However, with each day, Kurt gets more and more suspicious that Blaine is actually the one who’s doing all the corrupting.

Kurt catches himself pouting at Blaine when he makes fun of him, or actually laughing out loud at texts, or finding himself wanting to text Blaine when something funny happens in class. And yes, Blaine also convinces him to stop cutting class so much and do homework with him at the Lima Bean because he claims Kurt doesn’t have anything better to do, anyway. It’s not like Kurt can argue with that, and he rather likes the appreciative look on Blaine’s face whenever Kurt manages to finish his coursework first.

He doesn’t tell Blaine that he’s thankful for his persistence regarding Kurt’s performance in school for the same reason he doesn’t tell him that he, too, would love to live in New York City after graduation.

Blaine would just be so happy and cheerful about it, maybe even try to convince him to apply to the same schools when the time comes to make plans for the rest of their lives. And how’s that going to help when Kurt doesn’t even know how to make it past high school without losing sight of who he is?

It’s just better not to say anything. He can’t turn out to be a huge disappointment if he sets the expectation bar really low, right?

And he shouldn’t care about disappointing Blaine, anyway. In fact, he shouldn’t care at _all_ because caring is what he was trying to get rid of in the first place.

And yet, in a weird logic, he keeps telling himself that he could also just stop caring that he cares.

In the end, he just sticks to his old agenda: Whenever it’s too obvious that he cares, he just denies it or blames it on ulterior motives, especially out in public, where he makes sure to rake his eyes over Blaine’s body whenever Blaine isn’t looking because at least people will think there’s only one thing Kurt’s after.

It’s the only solution he has because, after two months of talking and texting and getting coffee and… yes, actually having fun, Kurt just doesn’t find it in himself to tell Blaine that they shouldn’t hang out, not even for the sake of his reputation.

Blaine, Kurt realizes, is his sort-of-not-really self-proclaimed best friend, and he has a feeling it’s a friendship he wouldn’t want to miss.

It comes with perks, most of them centered around the fact that Blaine is, simply put, one hell of a person. He is smart and sassy, a little too adamant that Kurt should be a model student as well as stop smoking but still adorable enough in his attempts that Kurt can tolerate them for what they are – _attempts_. And Blaine is also so wonderfully unabashed about the things he likes and dislikes that he doesn’t mind Kurt arguing with or judging him for it. They spend an entire afternoon debating whether Katy Perry and P!nk should ever deserve the title “favorite artist” in anyone’s book – Blaine votes “hell yes” and Kurt votes “ugh no,” but he has to admit he’s a little lost for a comeback when Blaine tells him he should at least acknowledge that P!nk is pretty much the person who invented the hair color Kurt is currently sporting.

Being Blaine’s friend, however, also comes with moral complications. As if it isn’t already enough to constantly blur the lines between friends and more with their flirting, Blaine also frequently crosses other lines that Kurt tries to maintain so desperately. There’s the annoying know-it-all attitude when it comes to the amount of cigarettes Kurt smokes (“I know you don’t even like them, you always make a face when you take your first drag!”), and the unsolicited ventures into Kurt’s private life, like when he asks about Kurt’s family and his relationship with Finn. It would be decidedly less unnerving if Kurt’s initial deprecating responses would have been of avail but Blaine keeps digging, and Kurt can tell from the way Blaine phrases his questions extra carefully that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

He’s trying to get to know Kurt better, and that’s the last thing Kurt needs. Getting to know him will only lead to trying to get him to change, and change is impossible with the way things have been at McKinley.

So he pushes Blaine away when he gets too close.

It’s just easier that way, even if Blaine is starting to look increasingly hurt whenever it happens.

-

Blaine is even more elated than usual when he comes back from his Regionals performance, telling Kurt all about their original songs and how they’re going to New York (“New York, Kurt!” he exclaims, and Kurt can only nod with a lump in his throat) for Nationals.

Mr. Shue apparently decides to give the Glee club a celebratory week off, giving Blaine lots of time to come hang out with Kurt even longer than usual, and the fact that he seems to be insanely happy to get to spend more time with Kurt makes it even harder to give Blaine the bad news.

“I, uh.” Kurt fidgets a little on the spot as he tries to escape Blaine’s eyes. “I’m… this isn’t planned, I swear, but… I can’t actually hang out before our usual time.” He pauses, sighing. “I got detention.”

“Kurt!” Blaine frowns, giving Kurt a measuring look. “What did they catch you doing?”

“Smoking on campus,” Kurt mutters, nodding to the cigarette in his hand. “I was listening to music on my phone so I didn’t hear Coach Beiste come up behind me.”

Blaine pouts. “How long?”

Kurt shouldn’t feel this bad about not being able to hang out. They didn’t make any plans, it’s not like he promised Blaine anything. But seeing Blaine sad somehow makes him furious at himself for getting caught.

“Three weeks.” Kurt shrugs. “Not too bad, I guess, but I’ll have to take a rain check on those prolonged afternoons…”

“Bummer.” Blaine looks thoughtful for a while, staring off into the distance, before he turns back to Kurt with a mischievous smile on his face. “You said you were listening to music?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?”

“So you do still like music!” Blaine’s eyes light up. “What was it? Kurt, was it top 40?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Kurt scoffs. “No, it was more like… Scandals music.”

Blaine doesn’t need to know that top 40 is well within their usual repertoire. Neither does he need to know that Kurt was actually listening to the Beatles.

“Scandals?” Blaine looks confused. “Is that a band?”

Kurt laughs. “No, silly. It’s a gay club.”

“Wait, you go clubbing?” Blaine asks, tilting his head like he’s trying to process what he’s learning about Kurt, and if didn’t look so adorable doing it, Kurt would probably glare at him. “Kurt, do you _dance_?”

Now Kurt does glare.

“Yes. Occasionally.” He takes a long drag of his cigarette, smoke clouding his vision as he exhales. It works well to hide Blaine’s excited face. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Blaine coughs when some of the smoke hits his face, and he makes a disgusted sound. Kurt thinks he’s going to get another lesson on how Blaine doesn’t want to become a second-hand smoker, when a hand snatches the cigarette right out of his mouth.

“Hey!” he protests, but Blaine holds it out of reach, and Kurt’s not as pathetic to make a dive for it. At least he hopes he’s not that pathetic.

“Take me dancing,” Blaine says.

“What?”

“I want to go to that club.” Blaine holds the cigarette even higher. “Scandals.”

“You do know I’m taller than you, right?” Kurt asks, eyes on the cigarette, and when Blaine stretches even higher, standing on his tiptoes to get it as far from Kurt as possible, Kurt sighs and turns his eyes back to Blaine’s face. “You want to go to Scandals?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll give me back my cigarette if I say yes?”

“You shouldn’t smoke, Kurt. It’s bad for your health and you already have three more weeks of detention.”

Kurt sighs. Maybe it is a good idea to lay off cigarettes for a while. He really could do without detention for the rest of his life.

“Fine. No smoking, and a night out at Scandals.” Kurt rolls his eyes as Blaine throws the cigarette to the ground immediately and grinds it under his heel. “Any other punishment you want to bestow on me for not being able to hang out?”

“It’s not punishment.” Blaine rolls his eyes, too. “We’re friends. Friends go dancing and look out for each other, right?” His face turns serious. “Or do you not want to go to Scandals? I mean… you don’t _have_ to take me.”

“No, I could do a night out,” Kurt says, trying not to think about the implications – dancing in front of Blaine, maybe dancing _with_ Blaine – and failing. “So… Saturday?”

“Woohoo!”

Blaine bounces on his heels and yeah, there is no way in hell Kurt is ever going to actually corrupt him, he’s just entirely too pure for something like that.

And Kurt’s completely at his mercy when he gets like this.

-

Getting Blaine a fake ID turns out to have been completely unnecessary because Scandals is so crowded that the doorman just nods at Kurt, recognizing him from months prior, and doesn’t even look at Blaine.

Kurt goes in behind Blaine, and he takes the opportunity to mentally curse Blaine for wearing such form-fitting, mind-blowing, frustration-inducing clothes in a way he couldn’t when Blaine stepped into the car and took Kurt’s breath away. It’s not like he could just blurt out, “Holy shit, you look good enough to eat,” to his friend just like that, right?

Blaine is oblivious to Kurt’s wild thoughts as he takes in their surroundings.

“Wow, it doesn’t look very…” he trails off.

“Glamorous? Enticing?” Kurt provides, shrugging as he steers them over to the bar. “There’s a reason it’s called Scandals, you know?”

“I thought that was a reference to…” Blaine blushes, which is almost refreshing to see because since they’ve become… well… platonic, more or less, the times Kurt has seen Blaine’s cheeks redden have decreased significantly. “The things going down around here.”

“Oh, they’re going down alright.” Kurt smirks. “But only if you’re sleazy enough.”

_Like me_ , he might add.

They sit down at the bar and order some drinks. Kurt, being the designated driver, orders a non-alcoholic cocktail, but reassures Blaine that it’s fine if he wants to have alcohol.

Four tequila shots later, they’re both on the dance floor, sweating and swaying together to the beat that comes through the speakers, throbbing low in Kurt’s ears and buzzing through his body. Even without alcohol, the music makes him dizzy, and Blaine’s proximity does nothing to calm the way his pulse is speeding up.

“I can’t believe it,” Blaine babbles happily. “You’re dancing!”

Kurt lets Blaine drag him closer until there’s almost no space between them. He knows he shouldn’t enjoy the way Blaine’s physical inhibitions lower with the increased blood alcohol level because but he can’t help but feel an excited tug at his belly from the way he can feel Blaine’s breath on his skin where his head is now tucked against Kurt’s shoulder, and he can’t stop the bubble of laughter that escapes his mouth at Blaine’s words.

“I can’t believe it either,” he teases. “You’re drunk!”

“Nah, I’m not,” Blaine tries, but the words come out slurred, and he giggles into Kurt’s neck.

“Are, too.” Kurt smiles and does his best to steer them out of the way of a few very sloppy dancers who almost crash into them. When he regains his footing, Blaine sways into him, his forehead knocking into Kurt’s. Holding a hand out to steady Blaine, Kurt almost pulls back to give Blaine space, but his eyes are transfixed on the way Blaine’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, and there’s no way he can’t _not_ notice how Blaine is keeping his hips close to Kurt’s, almost grinding instead of dancing now.

“Kurt…” he whispers, voice low and a little rough.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Kurt almost gives in, almost screws the last bit of morals he hasn’t shredded yet, but something holds him back.

Blaine doesn’t want this, not like _this_ , and Kurt can’t give him what he really needs.

“Let’s get you some water,” he breathes out, detaching himself from Blaine and ignoring the pout he receives in return.

Blaine sobers up a little, enough to not make any more advances, and spend the rest of the night dancing without touching again.

But things are different, Kurt can feel it.

There’s a million “what if” questions hanging over them, and it changes things.

He can’t stop thinking about the answers.

-

Things go back to normal, as well as they can now that Kurt’s been indoctrinated with the image of Blaine’s lips so close to him, almost kissing him, but he keeps his mouth shut about it and copies Blaine’s ignoring policy.

At least he thinks Blaine is ignoring the issue. Maybe he just doesn’t remember.

But he doubts that’s the case because, just like with the no-flirting agreement, they don’t talk about Scandals again for a whole week.

They still have fun like usual, they still tease and laugh so hard they have to clutch their bellies, but Kurt can’t stop wondering.

Had he known in advance that getting answers would also lead to a fight, he probably wouldn’t have thrown caution in the wind.

They’re sitting under the bleachers after Kurt’s first detention of the second week, engaged in a heated discussion about Blaine’s overuse of hair gel (well, Kurt thinks he’s overusing; Blaine thinks his addiction is completely normal), when Blaine suddenly says, “I can’t believe I haven’t shown you the picture yet!”

“What picture?” Kurt asks. “Do you have a photo without gel, Blaine? Why don’t I know of its existence?”

“Stop being ridiculous, I don’t let people take pictures of my natural hair,” Blaine says, waving him off. “But… wait, where is it- oh, there… ah, let me zoom in… here.”

He gives Kurt his phone. Kurt squints down at it.

“What is this?”

“This, my friend, is a horrible Christmas gift brought to you by spelling mistakes.”

Kurt rolls his eyes at the recurring topic but holds the phone closer to his face. It’s a picture of a bathroom stall (“at Breadstix,” Blaine tells him) and written on the door is the question, _What should I get my girlfriend for xmas????_

“X-mas isn’t a spelling mistake,” Kurt says, but Blaine gestures for him to continue reading.

Sure enough, one of the answers reads, _a nice colon_.

Kurt stares at it for a few seconds before he bursts out laughing, clutching the phone in his hand as he throws his head back, leaning into Blaine to keep from falling.

“Oh my god!” he exclaims. “That took me a while but oh… my… god!”

Blaine giggles. “I told you I could find the worst spelling mistake in history, didn’t I?”

Kurt gasps in agreement as he tries to catch his breath.

“Fuck,” he gets out. “I think I’m dying.”

“No, don’t die.” Blaine smiles. “Who will share my love for orthography when you’re gone?”

“ _You_ love orthography, I just like the morbid humor of this one.”

“So you wouldn’t approve if I told you I corrected it?” Blaine asks.

Kurt punches him in the arm.

“Blaine Devon Anderson, you didn’t!” he exclaims. “That’s beautiful poetry right there, and you defaced it? Shame on you!”

Blaine laughs. “Actually, I didn’t. I wrote, _please buy a dictionary_ next to it.”

Kurt stares at him, smiling widely.

At first, Blaine returns it, but then he’s starting to look self-conscious.

“What…?”

Kurt bites his lip. Blaine’s eyes follow the movement.

The Scandals images come back full force. It makes him beyond nervous.

Jesus.

Taking a deep breath, Kurt tells him, “You’re something else, you know that?”

Blaine’s breath hitches a little, and it drives Kurt crazy, the constant game of _should I, should I not_ , and he’s well aware by now that he’s just torturing himself with his anti-dating stance.

So he leans closer.

Just one kiss, maybe…

And then Blaine presses two fingers to Kurt’s mouth all of a sudden.

“Kurt… we can’t,” he says, looking dazed but adamant.

“I- what-” Kurt’s words come out muffled. He struggles to break free. “Come on, really?”

Blaine takes his fingers off his mouth and lets them rest at the lapel of Kurt’s jacket instead. His fingers curl around the leather material.

“Why…” Blaine gulps, eyes on the lapel. “Why did you stop me when we were dancing?”

So he didn’t forget.

“Because you were drunk,” Kurt says. “It wouldn’t have been right.”

“But you wanted to?” Blaine asks.

“Did I-” Kurt laughs hollowly, gesturing between the two of them. “Isn’t that obvious?” He sighs. “Blaine, you were, like, seconds away from jumping me, and I wasn’t sure how much self-restraint I would have had left if it came to that… I remember you telling me about your no-sex-until-you’re-absolutely-sure-you-want-it rule, you know?”

“What if I did want it?” Blaine asks defiantly but his trembling lips betray him.

“You didn’t,” Kurt says simply. “And drunk and consenting cancel each other out, anyway.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Blaine says, clearly frustrated. “I don’t know how to… ugh, anyway. Why now?”

“Why now…?” Kurt asks, not following at first, but then Blaine stares at his lips pointedly, and he’s getting nervous all over again. “Oh. Um… well. I mean… you know I’m attracted to you. It’s not like I’ve made it a secret. And I just thought… well, maybe I didn’t think, maybe that’s the problem…”

He’s rambling, and he’s not getting the words out right, but really, does the need to kiss someone even _have_ a rational explanation?

“Have you changed your mind about wanting a boyfriend?” Blaine wants to know, looking anywhere but Kurt’s eyes, as if he already knows the answer. “That’s what I’m trying to ask.”

And Kurt knows that he knows. Of course it hasn’t changed.

He _can’t_ have a boyfriend. How is he supposed to maintain this fuck-everything persona with a boyfriend around who, even just as a friend, makes him want to smile and sing all day long?

So Kurt can _want_ a boyfriend all he likes, he just can’t _have_ one.

“I want a boyfriend, someone to date, someone to… to fall in love with,” Blaine says softly when Kurt still hasn’t replied after a full minute. “I can’t do this casually, Kurt. If I’m going to start, I won’t want to stop.”

“Then _don’t_ ,” Kurt argues, desperate now, only noticing how he’s leaning back in when Blaine takes a step back. “We don’t even have to… Blaine, it’s just simple-”

“It’s anything _but_ simple!” Blaine sounds upset now, and he actually takes a few more steps backwards to get space between them. Wow. Kurt tried so hard to make him upset during the week they met and _now_ Blaine snaps when Kurt doesn’t even want him to anymore? “I can’t just not _feel_ anything like you do, Kurt! It’s not… I can’t do that, okay?”

If Blaine only knew that _not_ feeling anything isn’t Kurt’s issue at all.

“Blaine, just calm-”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Blaine sneers. “I’m sorry that I can’t become an emotionless robot for you but… I’ll expect the same consideration from you! At least _try_ to be sorry that you can’t feel anything in return!”

“I _am_ sorry,” Kurt protests. “Of course I am!”

“Then stop giving me mixed signals,” Blaine pleads. “Please, Kurt. I can deal with the rejection but don’t string me along.”

Kurt’s mouth opens but nothing comes out. He wants to confirm that he’ll stop, that they’ll just continue to talk like nothing happens, that he’ll be the friend Blaine needs but – he can’t help it that he _wants_ Blaine, whatever that even means.

“Blaine, I- I can’t… _you_ were the one who wanted to be friends in the first place,” Kurt finally stutters. “It’s not _my_ fault you forced yourself into my life.”

Apparently that’s the absolute worst thing he could have said because Blaine’s jaw clenches, hard, and he looks close to tears as he schools his face into an angry expression.

“Well, that was obviously very stupid of me,” he grits out, grabbing his bag. “You clearly don’t know how to be anyone’s friend.”

“Blaine, wait,” Kurt says, voice weak.

Blaine presses his lips into a thin line when Kurt doesn’t follow it up with some sort of apology or explanation that Kurt is sure is right there on the tip of his tongue but just won’t take the plunge.

“Kurt, what _happened_ to you that you are like this?” Blaine asks, tired and sad.

Kurt sighs. “I never said I wasn’t a jerk,” he says even though he knows that it’s not what he should be saying if he wants to keep Blaine around. “You can ask anyone in Glee club, they’ll tell you the tale of how shy little Kurt turned into a pink-haired freak.”

“I don’t want to hear it from anyone in Glee club,” Blaine says, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “They don’t know the whole story either, do they? I want to hear it from you.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Kurt says stubbornly. “Just leave it alone.”

“Leave _it_ alone, or leave _you_ alone?” Blaine asks. “Because, you know, I think they’re one and the same thing, Kurt. Every time I get the feeling I’m getting to know you a little better, there’s something that just doesn’t make sense, and it always comes down to why you even are like this in the first place.”

“If you don’t like who I am,” Kurt hisses, “why do you even bother?”

“If you think I don’t like you, you clearly haven’t been paying attention,” Blaine says sadly. “I like you, I like you a lot, Kurt.” He sighs. “But I want to get to know all of you, and that’s just not possible because you close up all the time. Rachel told me you like show tunes. Show tunes, Kurt! Why don’t I know about that? We talk every day, and I’m sure Broadway and New York have come up more than just once, and yet you always just ask about my opinions and never give me yours. But it’s not because you just don’t care or you don’t have anything to say… you’re _hiding_ it from me. Why?”

Kurt wants to run, to close up and hide like Blaine says he does.

“You’re right,” he says, feeling his throat close up at what he’s about to say. “I don’t know how to be anyone’s friend. But apparently you don’t know, either. You can’t bend your friends to be whatever you want them to be.”

Blaine’s eyes widen. “I’m not trying to-”

“Yes, you are!” Kurt insists, spitting the words out. “If you want someone to sing show tunes with, you should just go ahead and marry Rachel, she’ll be delighted. I’m not that someone. I’m not gonna be pushed around until I fit into whatever image you’ve made up in your head.”

“Is that what you think of me?” Blaine asks, bewildered, gaze turning cold. “Are you really _that_ afraid of someone getting to know you well enough to find out you’re actually just a big old softie that you’d rather blame me for trying too hard than yourself for not sharing anything with me?”

Kurt doesn’t say anything, he’s too busy trying not to let it show how close Blaine is to the truth.

“Well, then I guess that’s it,” Blaine says, looking like he’s only now realizing it himself. “I- I just… whatever. Have fun living your lonely life, I guess.”

He takes one more look at Kurt, shaking his head quickly, and storms off in a fast pace, leaving Kurt to look on helplessly, stunned, frozen.

Kurt lets himself feel for once.

He feels very, very sad.


	3. Chapter 3

He finishes his remaining two weeks of detention without any bathroom breaks or bored complaints. He gets the urge to start skipping class again after what happened but he doesn’t want to risk getting more detention. He’s already spending enough time sticking around after the detention teachers lets them out, hoping that Blaine will just show up and forgive him, eventually slumping down on the hallway floor and admitting defeat.

If he has to endure that even just one afternoon longer, he’ll break.

He usually spends lunch hour with the skanks but when they get on his case about actually attending class and getting good grades on his homework, he starts spending his lunch hours in the bathroom, playing games on his phone. On the morning of his last day of detention, he picks the wrong door, the one with the graffiti Blaine made his stupid corrections on, and he’s about to change stalls when he hears people come in and recognizes them as Sam and Blaine.

“Well, what did he say?” Sam asks.

At first, Kurt fears that they’re talking about him, and that he’s going to get horribly depressed about whatever Blaine’s answer might be but it turns out it’s possible to get horribly depressed even when the conversation isn’t about him at all.

“He said yes!” Blaine gushes. “We’re going out next Tuesday. It’s just coffee but I think it’s a date. My first date, Sam!”

It feels like a punch to Kurt’s gut.

_He’s_ Blaine’s first date, not some stupid older guy named Jeremiah, as he overhears from the next bit of their conversation. He asked Blaine _first_ , even if they never acknowledged that it was a date.

He’s balling his fists so hard his knuckles are turning white, and he knows he’s being ridiculously childish, but he glares daggers into the red letters Blaine exchanged with the wrong ones on the stall door and doesn’t even realize that there are tears pooling in his eyes until Blaine and Sam leave the room again, and he’s left with thundering silence.

It goes to show how much his demeanor must have changed even within the few months that he’s hung out with Blaine because his dad doesn’t just let it slide when Kurt comes home from his last detention and storms to his room without saying a word to anyone.

“Kurt?” Burt asks quietly, sticking his head through the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Kurt shrugs, not looking up from the bed where he’s lying on his stomach, face flat on the mattress.

“You’re a free man,” he says sulkily.

He feels his dad sitting down next to him.

“What’s going on?” his dad asks. “And don’t tell me the obvious, I want to know what happened last week.”

Kurt sighs, and turns onto his back.

“What exactly is the obvious?” he asks.

Burt shrugs. “I know there’s a boy. I know it must have been going well because you seemed happy.” He pauses. “Like you used to be. And even happier than that.”

Kurt gulps. He should have known that his dad can’t be fooled. He always figures it out.

Maybe Kurt can talk about it, just this once.

“There _was_ a boy,” he whispers. “But I ruined it.”

“Why did you ruin it?”

Kurt swallows around nothing and takes his time with the reply.

“Because I’m an emotionless robot, apparently,” he finally settles on, the words leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

Burt looks at him for a long time, not saying anything. Kurt’s almost convinced he’ll just tell Kurt that he had it coming and then leave.

But then his dad sighs.

“Kurt, I haven’t said anything all this time because I know how you deal with problems – you shut people out. You did it when your mom died, and you did it when… when I was in the hospital. And I don’t know what happened when Carole and I went away for our honeymoon but I know you’re not just changing your style like you told me you did. You’ve been stroppy, you’re coming home smelling like an ashtray, and you haven’t talked to any of your friends. Why are you doing this to yourself, Kurt?”

“I can’t really talk about it,” Kurt says with a sigh. “And that’s exactly why I ruined it.”

“Can’t you at least try?”

“I’ve literally had this exact conversation two weeks ago, dad,” Kurt says, turning his face away from him. “Can’t we just let it go and agree on how much of a fuck-up I am?”

“No, we can’t,” Burt says sternly. “No son of mine is going to call himself a fuck-up without explaining to me what exactly is going on.” When Kurt doesn’t say anything, he adds, “I’m not leaving this room until you talk. Start from the beginning.”

At first, Kurt tries to deflect, tries to convince him to just let it go, but he gets his stubbornness from somewhere and it can’t be from his mom’s side because Burt wins almost too easily. Kurt finally gives in, on the condition that he gets to talk without any kind of interjections, and when Burt finally agrees, he spills.

He starts with the time just before the honeymoon, ignoring his dad’s eyes when he talks about the bullying and how bad it got, but he feels Burt tense next to him. He makes good on his promise not to interrupt, though, so Kurt continues telling him how he needed to make himself tougher and thought it would be easier if he wasn’t in Glee club or friendly to anyone at all.

Talking about it, Kurt realizes that while it had seemed like the perfect plan at the time, hindsight really is twenty-twenty.

When he is done, it takes Burt a while to reply, and when he does, his voice cracks.

“Kurt,” he says, pulling him into his arms, “I wish you had come to me right away.”

“I was scared you’d be so upset you’d get another heart attack,” Kurt whispers, biting the inside of his cheek so he won’t cry. “And I had things under control.”

“Clearly you didn’t, if that bully harassed you and threatened to kill you,” Burt mutters angrily, but Kurt shakes his head.

“That was before I became this.” He gestures down to himself. “It’s working, he’s not bothering me anymore.”

“Kurt, you shouldn’t have to change your entire life to escape one bully,” Burt says incredulously. “What happened to ‘Nobody pushes the Hummels around,’ huh?”

“Nobody pushes me around anymore, though.” Kurt shrugs. “It’s simple, I don’t look like I get hurt easily, and I _don’t_ get hurt easily.”

“Okay, but it’s not really working, is it? You’re still hurt. Right now, you’re hurting, aren’t you?”

Kurt stares down at his sheets.

“Maybe,” he mumbles.

“Kurt,” his dad says, “you’re compromising your happiness so you can keep yourself safe when it isn’t your job to do so.”

“You think anyone at school is going to keep me safe?” Kurt scoffs. “Being in Glee club basically makes you a walking target, and none of the teachers care if we get slushied, let alone taunted, locked in, shoved into lockers...”

“Assaulted and threatened to death,” Burt adds, voice gravely. “They will listen to that, trust me.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kurt counters.

“Oh, I’m gonna _make_ sure,” Burt tells him, and when Kurt starts to protest, he interrupts quickly, “Don’t you worry about my health or your reputation, I’m not going to let you become… what did you say it was? An emotionless robot? That’s not who you are, Kurt. And I’m not going to let you do that to yourself. It won’t do you any good to keep it all locked inside.” Burt smiles gently. “No wonder you’re hurt.  That would leave anyone in a bad place, really. And see how it all threatens to come out no matter how much you try to keep it in? It was bound to happen, buddy.”

Kurt feels tears slip down his cheeks now, and even though it’s just his dad, he sort of wants to hide under a pillow until they’re gone.

“But how can I go back?” Kurt asks, angrily wiping at his cheeks. “I can’t just suddenly start hanging out with the Glee club again like nothing happened.”

“You mean your friends,” Burt reminds him, his forehead crinkling in concern. “And why shouldn’t you? You changed once before, why not change back? Your friends will understand, I’m sure.”

“They forgot about me quickly enough,” Kurt says defiantly. “And I was doing _fine_ on my own. But then Blaine-”

“Is that the boy?”

“Yeah.” Kurt picks at his sheets. “I thought… I thought I’d be done with him quickly.” He feels the disapproving gaze of his father but he pushes through it. If he’s going to talk about it this once, he’s going to do it right. “But he turned out to be different.”

“Different how?” Burt asks.

“He actually likes me.” Kurt grimaces. “ _Liked_ me.” He sighs. “He just… he asked a lot of questions but I think he actually liked me even though I’m like… this. I thought that was impossible.”

“Hey, I like you like this,” Burt says, nudging his shoulder with a pout. “Doesn’t that count?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Dad.”

“Alright, alright, I know, he’s different.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Kurt bites his lip. “You don’t really like me like this, do you? Pink hair and piercings and leather?”

“Of course I do.” Burt shifts a little so he can look Kurt right in the eye. “I’m not always going to approve, I certainly do not like the thought of you smoking or throwing yourself around like you don’t matter, but you’re still always going to be my sweet little boy who loves tea parties and organizes weddings like a professional, okay? I love you, Kurt, and you can dye your hair pink or purple or yellow for all that I care, I’ll still love you like crazy.”

Another tear slips out, and this time, Kurt doesn’t wipe it away.

“Dad…” he breathes out. He really needed to hear that, and he didn’t even realize it himself how _much_ he needed to hear that. “Thank you.”

Burt grins. “So, this Blaine likes you, huh?”

“Don’t be weird about it.” Kurt attempts a smile. It turns out a little crooked. “Besides, he doesn’t. Not anymore. He’s going on a date with someone else.”

“Tough.” Burt pats him on the shoulder. “But maybe if you start being honest with him, he’ll change his mind?” Kurt shrugs, and Burt throws him a pointed look. “Kurt, I’m giving you this last advice and then I’m going to leave you alone and get on the phone with your principal.” He seems to take Kurt’s silence as a sign to continue. “Honesty is the best policy, in every relationship. I know you think you’re being strong by not letting your feelings show but you know what? True strength isn’t being cool and distant, it’s showing someone how much you care, making yourself vulnerable, letting your guard down every once in a while. If you really like him, _tell_ him.”

Kurt doesn’t look up, trying to fight down another rush of tears, and when he does lift his head, his dad is already gone.

-

Kurt doesn’t sleep much that night.

On the upside, come morning, he finally convinces himself that it’s time to pull his head out of his ass and make plans to get things right this time.

Maybe Blaine will date someone else, and maybe Kurt will still end up lonely, but he still doesn’t want to lose his friend. And, also, he figures it couldn’t hurt making it up to other people as well.

Carole and Finn look like they’ve seen a ghost when they find Kurt in the kitchen, making pancakes for breakfast and wishing them a good morning. Burt just looks pleased – with himself or with Kurt, Kurt isn’t sure, but the smile he gets suggests that at least part of it is fatherly pride.

When Kurt gets to school, he heads straight to Quinn’s locker.

“Hey, Quinn,” he greets her, trying his best to look cheerful.

She blinks at him. “Hi, Kurt,” she says, clearly surprised. “How’s it going?”

“Not wonderfully, but that’s beside the point,” Kurt says, rushing to get the words out. “Listen, I really need to know where you’re meeting with your church group today.”

“If it’s about Blaine, that’s going to be hard no,” she says, frowning. “I don’t know what’s going on but he’s pissed at you, Kurt. He never gets mad, so whatever you’ve done, it must have been bad. I’m not gonna let you mess with him anymore.”

Kurt gulps. “Please, Quinn,” he says. “That’s why I need to know. I want to apologize.”

She looks him in the eye ~~s~~ for a long time, and Kurt does his best to keep still and not avert his gaze. Finally, she nods.

“Alright, we’re meeting at my house today.”

“Thank you!” Kurt breathes out, and leaves quickly to be able to make it to Mr. Shue’s office before his first class.

He’s a bit nervous for his lunch break but as soon as he has his try, he doesn’t let himself chicken out and heads straight for the Glee club table. Mercedes and Rachel are the only ones there when he arrives, and they stare up at him with big eyes.

“Kurt,” Rachel says. “What- I mean…” She lifts her chin. “What do you want?”

Kurt doesn’t know how to respond, heart sinking a bit at her change in tone, but Mercedes breaks out into a big grin.

“Well, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to sit your cute leather butt down?” she asks, and Kurt can’t help but smile at the compliment and at how she hasn’t changed at all, even though he hasn’t spoken to her in almost half a year.

“The latter, if that’s okay with you,” he says, almost shyly, and they both nod eagerly.

As soon as his lunch tray is placed on the table, he’s suddenly engulfed in a three-way hug and he laughs heartily.

“I missed you,” he says truthfully. “Sorry I’ve been such a jackass.”

“As you should be,” Rachel tells him, and apparently, the topic is off the table after that because she launches right into a tirade of how Mr. Shue unfairly didn’t give her a single solo for Sectionals and that she wrote a song for Regionals to get Finn back and by the way, has Finn mentioned her at all?

More people start coming to the table, and Kurt apologizes to each and every one of them, and by the time Blaine and Sam arrive at the table, Kurt almost feels like things are back to normal.

But it’s clear that they aren’t when Blaine takes one look at him at their table and freezes.

“Let’s go sit somewhere else,” Sam says at once, taking Blaine with him, and Kurt looks down at the table quietly, not daring to call out for Blaine to wait.

He has plans B and C in motion, anyway.

Plan B involves a lot more courage than he initially thought he’d need. So much courage that, in fact, when he’s standing outside the choir room door, he feels like he’s about to jump down a cliff.

“Okay… you can do this, Kurt,” he mutters to himself, and when Mr. Shue opens the door for him like he always does when he wants to surprise-announce new members of the Glee club, he struts in as if nothing’s wrong.

He sees Blaine sit up straight in his chair out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t want to focus on him solely, at least not at first.

“Hi,” he says quietly. “I know I’ve said this to most of you over lunch today but I’ll repeat it here. I’m sorry for just quitting on you shortly before Sectionals…” He smiles a little. “And just as Mr. Shue was about to give me a solo, too.” There’s a few chuckles but what gives him courage most of all is that Blaine seems to be hanging onto every word he’s saying. “I… I’m bad with words, so I’m going to apologize in song. For everyone who doesn’t know me that well yet,” he looks at Lauren Zizes but, of course, she’s not the only one he’s addressing with this, “I love New York, and I want to live there someday. I want to become a musical performer because I love show tunes… and this one is not only my favorite but also the perfect song for the situation.”

He nods at Brad, who starts playing the opening chords of _Being Alive_ , and takes position next to the piano. He makes sure to let his gaze sweep over all of them while he sings but he can’t help but let his eyes linger on Blaine whenever the lyrics call for it. He thinks he sees Blaine’s lip tremble when he sings, “ _Someone who, like it or not, will want you to share, a little, a lot,_ ” and is completely sure of it when he gets to, “ _But alone is alone, not alive_.”

So he sings for someone to crowd him with love, to force him to care, to make him come through, and by the end of the song, he’s panting with exhaustion and nerves and relief, because all the things he’s been keeping locked in, just like his dad things, just needed to get out and be vocalized.

He missed singing. He’s flushing with pride when his friends get up and applaud him, Rachel saying over and over that she couldn’t have picked the song better herself, but his eyes keep flitting back to Blaine who hasn’t stood up or said anything, instead clapping silently, mouth slightly agape.

“That was terrific, Kurt.” Mr. Shue claps him on the back. “Now, I know you can’t join us today, but we’re happy to have you-”

“Wait, you’re not staying?” Tina asks, looking sad.

“Just for today,” Kurt promises. “I have a meeting with the principal. But I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“Like I was about to say,” Mr. Shue says with a smile, “we’re happy to have you back. I actually have to accompany Kurt to Figgins’ office, so why don’t you all go over the moves we did yesterday? Mike, are you okay to take the lead?”

Mike nods, and as Mr. Shue and Kurt leave the room, Kurt throws one last glance back to Blaine, who still hasn’t moved from his seat.

-

The meeting is more or less successful, and even though Karofsky doesn’t admit to the whole truth, Kurt’s accusations outweigh his lack of explanation and Figgins decides to suspend him with a warning that it will result in expulsion if he ever so much as touches Kurt again, even though Kurt is sure that it won’t be a problem. Karofsky hasn’t gone after him in months.

It does seem to make Burt a little calmer, and for that Kurt is glad. He would hate to see his dad get too worked up about it all. Finn joins them in the hallway when the meeting and Glee club are both over, telling Kurt he did an awesome job on the song, and Burt raises an eyebrow.

“Been doing some singing, huh?” he asks with a smirk. “Trying to win someone back?”

Kurt rolls his eyes but he’s also blushing, and his dad gives him a good-natured, one-armed hug. Finn, however, looks from one to the other with wide eyes.

“Wait, what?” he asks. “Are you trying to get back together with Brittany?”

“No, with Quinn, I’ve been seeing her behind your back,” Kurt shoots back dryly, before Quinn’s name reminds him of his plan C. “Oh, damn, it’s late already. I need to hurry if I want to make it to church group.”

“ _Church_ group?!” Finn and Burt both call after him incredulously, but Kurt’s already speeding through the hallway to get to his car.

When he reaches the villa half an hour later, Quinn opens the door for him and grins.

“You’re late,” she tells him. “But he hasn’t stopped smiling since Glee club so I guess I should let you off the hook.”

Kurt sighs in relief. “Good, I wasn’t sure. I know he has a date on Tuesday, so…”

“With that Jeremiah guy he met at the GAP?” Quinn screws up her nose. “If he’s smart, he’ll choose the guy with the more interesting hair.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, not daring to ask out loud in whose favor that would work, and she breaks out into a smirk.

“That’s you, Kurt,” she says, tapping his nose.

“Good, good,” he breathes out, blushing.

“Now go,” she urges him, pushing his shoulders until he’s walking in the right direction. “We’re in the living room.”

As soon as the group notices him, he hears a few murmurs, all recognizing him from the meeting a few weeks ago. He waves at them, feeling stupid.

Quinn was right, Blaine actually does look significantly happier than he did over lunch, and his jaw drops a little when he sees Kurt.

“What…” he starts saying, everyone turning their head in his direction, but Quinn cuts in when he doesn’t continue.

“Kurt has something to say,” she says, sitting down and giving Kurt an encouraging nod.

“Well, um, I,” Kurt stammers, not prepared to have to talk that soon, “I’ll be quick, so I won’t be in the way of your bible study. I’m, uh… I’m not actually religious, like… no offense, but that’s just a little boring to me.” He cringes. “Okay, I’m getting this all wrong, um- sorry I crashed your meeting back in January, I was actually just there to make my afternoon a little more interesting, and it actually worked, because I got a friend out of it.”

He looks at Blaine, tilting his head slightly. “And then I really hurt that friend’s feelings because I’m so bad with opening up, and… I remembered that you,” his eyes flicker to the pastor, who looks way too pleased with himself, that bastard, “told me that you couldn’t support me if I didn’t open up, and I guess that’s why I came here to apologize, because… well, I care about that friend…” He coughs self-consciously. “Okay, you probably all know it’s Blaine anyway, right? That friend talk is getting a little pathetic.”

Kurt takes a deep breath. “Blaine, I’m sorry, I’ve been rude, and a jerk, and I just want you to know that I didn’t try to hide stuff from _you_ , I was actually hiding it from _myself_. I had _just_ gotten really good with isolation and stuff and… uh, yeah, well, you kind of reminded me of what it was to feel like myself again, so I closed up and got distant, and that wasn’t cool, so…”

He’s suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious because when he planned this, he had this fantasy image in his head of Blaine suddenly getting up and kissing him, but Blaine isn’t moving at all. Taking another deep breath, he fishes a letter out of his pocket.

“Okay, well, anyway, I’m sorry, and if you want the whole story…” He puts the letter on Quinn’s coffee table in front of Blaine, watching as Blaine’s eyes follow the movement. “I wrote it down because I wasn’t sure if you’d hear me out. And, again, no offense,” he looks around quickly, “I don’t like sharing stuff with strangers.” Focusing back on Blaine, he adds, “Please read it? I… I hope that clears things up. And… yeah, I’ll- I’ll be going now. Sorry for crashing the meeting.” Kurt sighs. “Again.”

He turns on his heel and walks out quickly, his cheeks burning. Even before he became a skank, he would have never emptied his heart in front of that many people, at least not if it wasn’t in song, and his rapid heartbeat is proof of how unnerving it was.

He walks out of the house, stuffing his hands in his pockets as soon as he’s out the door because it’s freezing cold, and is about to cross the street to get to his car when somebody grabs his arm.

“Kurt.”

It’s Blaine.

Kurt turns around slowly.

“Blai-“ He doesn’t even get Blaine’s name out completely, because there are lips pressed against his all of a sudden, and his brain barely manages to register that Blaine is _kissing_ him before it short-circuits in a jumble of thoughts that are all haikus about Blaine’s lips, and the feel of his breath on Kurt’s skin and his biceps under the touch of Kurt’s fingers. And Kurt does get out Blaine’s full name when he has a chance to gasp it out into the cold air when Blaine starts mouthing alongside his jaw and back up to recapture his lips.

Kurt briefly thinks he’s getting too dizzy too fast, but then he remembers that he’s not going to let anyone define him anymore and that he can feel whatever the hell he wants, and the dizziness suddenly doesn’t seem so scary anymore. He starts to smile into the kiss, happy and elated, and presses both of his hands to Blaine’s face, deepening the kiss until they need to stop for a second to catch their breath.

“You can’t have read my letter that fast,” Kurt mumbles, voice raw.

“Didn’t need to.” Blaine shakes his head and retrieves the unopened letter from his jacket. “Kurt, that song- and then just now- I… I’ll read the letter later but first, I need to apologize too.” He smiles sadly. “It wasn’t cool of me to try to force you to tell me stuff. You get a say in what to share and what not to. I’ll wait patiently for every bit of it, I promise.”

Kurt leans in to kiss his cheek swiftly, and enjoys the way Blaine’s skin warms up at the touch.

“Can I share something now?” he asks, smiling toothily.

Blaine nods, blinking and biting his lip, and looking so delectable Kurt almost dives right back into kissing him, but he wants to get this out first.

“I really, really, really like you,” Kurt says. “And I, um, I changed my mind about what I want. So, I’d really like to give this dating thing a try… unless you’ve changed your mind, too, which I hope you haven’t.” He chuckles awkwardly. “There, I’ve been waiting to get that out for a while.”

Blaine pulls their bodies close so hard their foreheads almost knock together when they kiss again.

-

It’s funny to stare at the door from the outside for once, but Mr. Shue let them go a bit early today and Kurt has a few minutes to kill, so he slides down onto the hallway floor, his back leaning against the wall, and starts humming his solo line for the group number they’re going to perform at Nationals.

He’s so engrossed in the song that he jumps when the door suddenly opens to reveal Puck storming out. He doesn’t seem to be surprised to see Kurt there and just winks at him as he storms into freedom, barely giving Kurt the chance to say hi.

The next one out is Azimio who makes a disgusted face at Kurt when he sees him on the floor.

“Waiting for your boyfriend, Hummel?” he sneers, and Kurt almost laughs at the implication of his tone that any of that is somehow supposed to be offensive.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Kurt replies coolly, smirking up at Azimio. “And if you don’t wanna watch me make out with him as soon as he gets his cute butt out of that room, I suggest you go home and enjoy whatever boring-as-hell afternoon activity _you_ have planned.”

Azimio glares at him but does as he’s told. Kurt can’t help but grin to himself. Who knew that the solution was this easy? During the last two months, Kurt has learned that having a boyfriend doesn’t take away any of his badass status, it actually _increases_ it. Because what’s more badass than showing off your hot boyfriend, come what may?

Though Kurt’s getting a feeling he might not ever see his hot boyfriend again because a minute later, Blaine still hasn’t emerged, and Kurt’s about to get up and go looking for him when he hears a cheery, “Lovely chat, Mrs. Mulligan, have a nice day!”

“You too, Blaine, you too!”

Kurt snickers to himself, and gets up from the floor just as Blaine saunters through the door.

“Oh, Kurt!” Blaine visibly lights up. “You waited for me?”

“Thought I’d finally return the favor,” Kurt says simply, leaning in to give Blaine a quick peck, before they start walking towards the school exit. “Even though I have a feeling I won’t get any more chances to do that because you clearly seem to have the detention teacher wrapped around your little finger.”

“You sound sad,” Blaine teases, stretching his limbs and blinking at the sun as they step out of the building. “Didn’t you miss me in Glee?”

“Not sad.” Kurt grins. “Just disappointed I haven’t been able to turn you into a rebel yet.”

Blaine pouts. “I got detention for the first time, doesn’t that count?”

Kurt laughs, letting out a high-pitched squeak that he doesn’t even feel self-conscious about.

“Blaine, you got into trouble for checking people’s bad spelling on their toilet poetry.” Kurt tilts his head teasingly. “That does _not_ count.”

“It said ‘valid Victorian’ instead of ‘Valedictorian,’ Kurt!” Blaine turns to him with dramatic gestures. “My eyes are still bleeding! And the worst part is I didn’t get to finish my correction because Coach Sylvester was already dragging me out of the bathroom for vandalism before I could even finish capitalizing the ‘v’. I tried telling her that I was just trying to fix it, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Kurt frowns. “What was she doing in there, anyway?”

“Who knows?” Blaine shrugs. “Anyway, I still maintain it had to be done.”

Kurt smirks as he leans against his car to face Blaine. “And I still maintain I know preschoolers more badass than you.”

“First of all, you’re not the king of badassery yourself and we both know it.” Blaine tries to look stern but Kurt knows he isn’t really upset because there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his boyfriend’s lips that just looks like it’s begging to be kissed off his smug face. “Second of all, are those the same preschoolers who had to listen to you whine about your booty fetish?”

Kurt makes a face, groaning. “I take it back, you’re super badass. Just please stop saying that horrible word.”

“I don’t think it’s horrible at all,” Blaine teases him. “I think it’s wonderful… and you know why?”

Kurt sighs, surrendering to Blaine’s incorrigible sass as always.

“Why?”

Blaine’s eyes on him turn soft as he closes the distance between them, pressing a sweet kiss to Kurt’s mouth, a little off-center.

“Because it reminds me of our first date,” he mumbles against Kurt’s lips, and Kurt wonders giddily if it’s possible to explode from feeling too much.

He doesn’t reply but he smiles into the kiss that follows, and positively whimpers when Blaine’s fingers stroke over his back, gripping the leather as their kiss gets more intense. His own fingers are digging into Blaine’s shoulders, holding him steady because more often than not, Blaine will lean up onto his tiptoes to keep kissing him, which makes him lose his balance at times. But his fingers slip when Blaine’s mouth moves to his neck all of a sudden.

“Oh god, Blaine,” he manages, panting impatiently. “Can we go make out in my car now? You’re right, I missed you in Glee club.”

Blaine bites his lip, blushing when he pulls back.

“Can we go to my house instead?” he asks, a little breathless. “My parents asked if you were coming to dinner…?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow, grinning at the blush that’s still sitting high on Blaine’s cheeks.

“Okay, I know I’m a bit unconventional in these things but you’d rather have dinner with chaperones, one of who doesn’t even particularly like me, than make out with me?” he jokes.

Blaine scoffs. “He likes you,” he insists for the umpteenth time. “Sure, he wasn’t too happy at first, but he’s making an effort. _He_ was the one to suggest dinner.” Blaine shrugs and fails to look nonchalant doing it. “Besides… my parents are heading out of town spontaneously because an old friend of theirs is getting married… so, um… I’ll have the house to… myself.”

The way he looks up through his lashes makes Kurt downright stupid.

“Oh,” he says inanely after what feels like an eternity. “I… okay… are- am I reading you right, are you saying that…”

“Yes.” Blaine tilts his head. “I’m sure. _Absolutely_ sure.”

The words send a pleasant shiver down Kurt’s body, and he exhales on a shaky breath.

“O-” The word catches in his throat. “Okay. Let’s… let’s go to your house.”

Blaine catches his wrist as he’s about to jump in the car.

“You’re sure, too, right?”

Kurt halts in his movements, turning back to look at Blaine.

“ _Yes_ ,” he says with conviction – he’s as sure as he’s ever been – and smiles softly. “Just nervous that your parents are going to know exactly what I’m thinking all throughout dinner.”

Blaine’s face breaks out into a grin.

“Just don’t mention the fact that you’re going to stay after dinner.”

“Don’t mention…” Kurt shakes his head amusedly as Blaine rounds the car to get in as well. Once they’re both seated, he continues, “They’re going to notice I’m still around when they leave, won’t they?”

They share a look in the rearview mirror.

“I was thinking you’d leave and I’d sneak you back into my room through my window,” Blaine admits, smiling mischievously.

Kurt’s jaw drops, and Blaine laughs.

“Am I a good rebel yet or what?” he asks innocently, leaning over the gear shift to press a kiss to Kurt’s cheek.

“Perfect,” Kurt breathes out, suddenly even more desperate to get the first part of the evening out of the way as quickly as possible. “Anything else I shouldn’t say or do?”

He’s mostly joking. Mostly. He really doesn’t want to make a bad impression.

Blaine’s dad might have warmed up to him, even letting them close the door when they’re in Blaine’s room, but he’s sure spending the night at Blaine’s is still a bit of a taboo.

Especially if it involves them having sex for the first time.

Oh god, they’re really doing this. Kurt forgets how to breathe for a second when the full scope of things hits him.

“Just be your amazing self.” Blaine grins. “And don’t talk about your booty fetish.”

“Blaine, will you stop it!” Kurt gasps. “That was _one_ time, and it was more about the shorts than about your ass!”

“Not true,” Blaine sing-songs. “I heard you tell Azimio that I had a cute butt.” He wiggles his butt in his seat in a silly dance that Kurt is totally _not_ committing to memory. They just need to get going right _now_ before Kurt forgets how to drive a car. “You totally have a booty fetish.”

Kurt turns on the ignition with a frustrated sigh.

He doesn’t tell Blaine that he might be a little bit right.

But, then again, maybe it’s more of a Blaine fetish.

-

Kurt’s been looking for a good moment, and there it is.

He was just going to use the restroom but his eyes glue themselves to the door once he sees which stall he chose.

He figures it’s a sign.

He struts back to the table his family is occupying, but instead of sitting back down between Carole and Blaine, he just looks at his boyfriend, holding his hand out.

“Blaine,” he says, “can we go to the bathroom for a minute?”

Blaine’s eyes go wide like saucers, his face the reddest Kurt’s ever seen it, and he visibly tries to be subtle as he tilts his head in Burt’s direction a little frantically, which is even more amusing given the fact that his dad breaks out into a coughing fit around the rim of his beer mug. Carole just raises her eyebrows with a smirk, and Finn squeaks out, “Can you two just _stop_?”

Well, okay, in Finn’s defense, he doesn’t like to hear about what Rachel and he get up to either, and he supposes it is true that their score isn’t exactly even, though that is hardly Kurt’s fault.

At least that one time at Rachel’s second attempt at a party totally can’t be blamed on him, because while Kurt did get… distracted with Blaine in Rachel’s kitchen when he was supposed to tend to the pizzas in the oven, he was completely collected when he brought down the slightly burnt food and said, “Sorry, I couldn’t get the pizzas out in time, I was doing… stuff.”

And Blaine can’t really be blamed either because it was probably the large amount of alcohol Puck had spiked the punch with that made him blurt happily, “I am stuff!”

Finn still holds it over both of their heads that he can’t eat pizza anymore without thinking about what went down in Rachel’s kitchen, even though it’s really completely Puck’s fault.

And Kurt gets it, he really does, but this time his intentions are completely innocent.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I just want to show Blaine something in the bathroom,” he says, smirking when Finn just sighs and barely misses his plate when he bangs his head on the table. “Blaine?”

“Coming,” Blaine mutters, blushing even more when Carole cracks up at the word choice. Kurt giggles as he takes his hand and steers him away from the table.

“Kuuurt,” Blaine whines as they reach the bathroom. “Was that really necessary? You couldn’t have waited until we got home, or at least, you know, not around your family?”

“Well, I couldn’t have defaced either of our private bathrooms without negative consequences, you know?” Kurt grins. “Besides, you really don’t have to still suck up to my dad, he likes you, okay? Stop being such a people-pleaser.”

“Oh, sue me, I like to please people, what’s wrong with that?” Blaine sniffs.

“Nothing, nothing.” Kurt waggles his eyebrows. “Personally, I _love_ pleasing people, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh my god, yes, I do catch your drift,” Blaine huffs out. “I’m always _there_ when you demonstrate just how much- wait, why were you talking about defacing our bathrooms?”

Kurt laughs. “See, I knew you’d catch on sooner or later.” He bites his lip. “I do have something I want to show you…”

He leans away from Blaine to get a hold of the nearest stall door, pulling it open to reveal the graffiti with colon gift suggestions Blaine had taken a picture of back when they were just friends (it seems like such a long time ago now, Kurt can barely remember what that even felt like).

Blaine raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, you already know that one.”

Kurt raises the green pen he stole – well, borrowed – from the reception when he carried out his plan.

“I took the liberty to make an addition.”

Blaine squints at the door, and Kurt can pinpoint the exact moment he spots the three words Kurt’s scribbled across the door because Blaine’s breath hitches and he leans back with a dazed look in his eyes.

“Kurt…”

“I thought of spelling it wrong, but I wanted the moment to be a happy one, and that probably excludes you lecturing me on grammar and words and all that stuff you care about so much.”

“Kurt,” Blaine repeats dazedly. He steps close to Kurt and reaches up to tangle one of Kurt’s pink strands in his hand with a dizzying smile. “I love you, too.”

Kurt’s heart gives a little jump because even though he kind of knew all along that it had to be love whenever Blaine traced little heart shapes on his face when they woke up next to each other, or when he swore he didn’t mind that his fingers were a deep pink from the hair dye for two days because the glove broke when he tried redying Kurt’s hair for the first time, or when he put on Kurt’s leather jacket for a whole day to prove he could look badass too and ended up looking a weird mixture of hot and adorable.

He leans in to kiss Blaine sweetly, only allowing himself a few seconds to run his tongue over Blaine’s bottom lip because he knows that if Blaine opens his mouth and lets them deepen the kiss, they’ll be here for a while, and he sort of doesn’t want to give Finn any more reasons to uninvite them from parties.

When they break the kiss, Blaine pouts suddenly. “I wanted to say it first. I’ve been preparing myself mentally for weeks.”

“Oops.” Kurt laughs, even though his heart is soaring at the thought of Blaine loving him for weeks now. “Well, you _did_ it say it first. I just wrote it.”

Blaine considers it for a few seconds, and then he shrugs.

“Fair enough.” His face splits up in a grin. “Aw, were you scared of telling me? Is that why you wrote it down?”

“No.” Kurt scoffs. “I was waiting for the right moment and I thought this would be romantic.”

“We’re in a public bathroom, Kurt.” His grin widens. “Your love declaration is literally right below someone’s suggestion to buy a new colon as a gift for Christmas.”

“True…” Kurt blushes. “Okay, maybe I didn’t think this through. Are you totally put off? Is it really tacky? I can erase it… I’m not sure how – this is a permanent marker – but I’ll do it.”

“Don’t you dare,” Blaine growls suddenly and crowds Kurt against the door, kissing him hungrily. “I love it. I love _you_. Don’t erase that.”

Kurt sighs into the kiss happily, once again thanking the heavens that he managed to turn things around before it got too bad. His dad, of course, takes every given moment to remind him that one should always listen to their father because they clearly are the source of wisdom. And while it got a little annoying after a while, Kurt still never finds it himself to fight him on it.

“You know,” Kurt mutters when Blaine shows no sign of stopping to even come up for air anymore, “for someone who was so adamant we don’t do this with my dad around, you’re sure getting into this.”

“Shut up,” Blaine mumbles, his eyes crinkling. “And can we, like, not talk about your dad while we make out?”

“Oh, yeah. Ew.” Kurt dives back in, trying his best to make both of them forget about his dad, and suppresses a smile when he notices Blaine’s fingers trace over the green letters behind his head, and nibbles on his jaw teasingly. “Like what you see?” he jokes.

“Please,” Blaine whispers hoarsely. “Can you say it?”

Kurt sobers up immediately, pulling back from Blaine’s jaw and looking him in the eyes, smiling brightly.

“I love you.” He nuzzles their noses together and takes Blaine’s hands in his. “I love you, and I’ll write it on a hundred doors if it makes you happy.”

“Just make sure you get the spelling right,” Blaine breathes out and Kurt hits him over the head playfully before returning to the task at hand, or, well, mouth.


End file.
